The tritons cursed and called on their god Persana but it was to no avail. They were doomed to their fates at the hands of the men Iakhovas gave them to. In only minutes, they were gone from sight and no longer heard.

The man gestured again. Another man swam from the shadows bearing a gold chest inlaid with precious stones, marked with sigils of power. He handed it to Iakhovas. The man turned and swam away.

Come, Iakhovas commanded, gesturing at the water and opening the gate again. We have much to do.

Shaken and mystified by the encounter, Laaqueel propelled herself after Iakhovas.

Look back, priestess.

The serenity of the feminine voice was startling. Laaqueel glanced at Iakhovas as he summoned the gate.

He does not hear me, priestess, the serene voice went on. My words are meant for your thoughts alone.

Who are you? Laaqueel asked. The voice was the same one that she had heard in Coryselmal as she was turned back from death.

Patience. All will be explained. For now, turn back and see the lies that Iakhovas has woven for your eyes to see.

Almost unwillingly, Laaqueel finned around, sweeping a hand through the water with the webbing open. The men were still in sight, only they weren't men anymore.

The three figures had deep purple skin that darkened to inky-black. Iridescent tips and lines marked the dorsal fin on their heads and backs. The heads were not oval like a human's or an elf's, but rather elongated and stretched out like that of a locathah. Their jaws formed cruel beaks.

Instead of two arms, they had four, all of them with humanlike appendages instead of the pincers or tentacles Laaqueel knew were also possible on the creatures. Their lower bodies ended in six tentacles.

Iakhovas lies, the serene voice said. He's not as invincible as he would have you. believe. You must watch yourself. Then the voice was gone, a slight pop of pressure that faded from the inside of Laaqueel's skull.

"I am Myrym, chieftain of the Rolling Shell people, and I bid you welcome."

Pacys believed Myrym to be the oldest locathah he'd ever met. Cataracts clouded her eyes, but she gave no indication of missing anything around her.

The fin at the top of her head ran all the way down her back. Other fins underscored the forearms and the backs of her calves. The huge eyes were all black but were unable to both focus on the bard at the same time. The locathah turned her head from side to side. She wore a necklace made of threaded white and black pearls that would have been worth a fortune in the surface world, and a sash of netting that held a bag of different kinds of seaweed, coral, and shells. The old bard's own magical inclinations told him the net bag contained a number of items of power.

They sat at the bottom of the abyss in a grotto between a crevice of rock made easily defensible by stands of claw coral. Fist-sized chunks of glowcoral had been used to build cairns around them, punching holes in the darkness of the sea bottom. The tribe sat scattered about her, nearly three hundred strong, covering the ledges above them as well as smaller caves. The young in particular pooled together in schools, floating and watching with their big eyes.

Three days ago, the music had brought Pacys south and east of the sea elf city, drawing him toward Omalun and the Hmur Plateau at the base of Impiltur. The old bard couldn't lay name to what exactly pulled him, but he'd been insistent about going. Taranath Reefglamor had assigned guards to him and provisioned them well. The sea elf guard waited further up the Hmur Plateau with the seahorses they'd used as steeds.

Seated cross-legged only a few feet from the locathah chieftain, Pacys ran his hands over the saceddar, underscoring their conversation with a gentle melody that spoke of calm seas and the patience of her people, their willingness to sacrifice so they might live.

Khlinat sat only a little distance away, laughing at the antics of the foot-long locathah children as they swam close to him to investigate, then swam away with quick, darting movements.

"Thank you for your hospitality," Pacys said, listening to the music that crooned within him. "I didn't know what drew me out here, but I think I know now."

"We were drawn to each other," Myrym told him. "We've only been in this place two days. We have kept moving. The sahuagin have come into these waters, and the surface world has developed a strong distrust of anyone who calls the sea home. We have received word that our locathah brethren in the Shining Sea have allied with the Taker, an unfortunate choice that will affect us all."

"I know," Pacys replied.

Khlinat chuckled heartily as one of the small locathah children finally got the nerve up to touch his beard. The sudden explosive laughter sent the locathah child swimming for its life, threading under and between stands of rock thrusting up from the seabed.

"Oh, an' yer a quick lad, ain't ye?" the dwarf chuckled. "A-dartin' through them waters like that, it's a wonder ye didn't brain yerself."

The locathah child cowered behind the nearest adult, who laid a tender hand on the child's head. The other locathah laughed with the dwarf.

Even in that moment of levity, though, Pacys could sense the innate fear of the locathah tribe. They hadn't known peace and prosperity for generations, nor were there any reassurances now.

"What do you know of the Taker's beginnings?" Myrym asked.

"Nothing." Pacys paused his song. "All whom I have talked to have told me only that he was born long ago, when Toril was young. They didn't know if he was human or elf in the beginning, or what he would look like now."

Myrym nodded. "Someone once knew, but they have forgotten. However, that which others forget, the locathah hold close and treasure that it may someday benefit us. The other races have prophecies, parts they are to play in the coming battle."

Pacys changed tunes, finding one that played more slowly and conveyed menace. He recognized it as one of the Taker's alternate scores.

"Those thousands of years ago," Myrym said, "there existed a being unlike any that ever lived before. Some have said he was even the first man, the first to crawl from the sea and live upon the unforgiving dry. What made him crawl from the blessed sea, no one may know, but some say there was a longing within him to find another such as himself. The sea in those days was very green and had only recently given up space to the lands that rose from the fertile ocean bottom at the gods' behest."

Pacys listened intently, striking chords that would help his song paint the pictures of the tale.

"The Taker wandered the lands," Myrym said, "but of course, he found nothing there. The dry world was too new, and even the world of the sea was very young. While he was on the land, he talked with the gods. They were curious about him, you see, at this weak thing that dared talk to them and question the things that they did."

From the corner of his eye, Pacys saw that the locathah woman held the full attention of her tribe. The cadence of her voice pulled them in.

"With nothing to find on land, the Taker returned to the sea. It has been said that the Taker was there the day Sekolah set the first sahuagin free."

"Did he have a name?" Pacys asked.

"If he did, it has been forgotten," Myrym answered. "In those days, before people came to the sea, before some of them left the oceans and made their homes on dry land only later to return to the sea, names were not necessary. There was only one."

"Is he a man?" the old bard asked. "A wizard?"

"Not a true man, but again, not a creature of the sea either. He was himself, a thing unique."

"How did he come to be?"